To ask, how much are Mumsnetters owed in maintenence arrears?

[whothehellknows]

I know from previous threads that there are lots of us on MN with ExP's that do anything they can to avoid maintenence.

Last night in a fit of ire (because ExP who "can't afford to pay maintenence" told me about how he's looking to buy a fucking boat) I used the CMS calculator to double check how much he should have been paying all this time. In total, our kids have missed out on over £6000 in payments in two years. The number really shook me. I'm sitting here thinking how many times I've cried in desperation trying to make ends meet, worked overtime, sold my stuff and gone without to take care of my kids. What a difference that money could have made.

I know it's a broken record, but I can't help but think that lone parents would need a lot less help from the state if NRP's had to step up and pay for their kids.

So out of curiosity, more than anything else, I'm wondering how much mumsnetters have had to make do without-- I'm betting it's a mind blowing amount.

If your ex should be paying and isn't, how much has he managed to dodge?

this thread is making me angry and tearful

Although HelenMN commented that the query has been passed on, we haven't really had feedback from MNHQ-- I'd be interested in their feedback.

Joffrey I was in exactly the same situation. Absolutely banned from mentioning non-payment of maintenance to the courts.

At one point he was telling the CSA he was unemployed but kept turning up to court in work clothes emblazoned with the name of the company he was working for!

I've been tweeting links to the thread to see if there's any more support to be had out there. It seems crazy that a fictitious story about breastfeeding in Primark can go viral within hours, but nobody wants to know about women and kids being financially abused every damn day.

Is anybody any good with hashtags? It might help if more of us were tweeting, but I can't think of a decent tag for it.

#unpaidchildsupportisabuse ?

Only just seen this thread and not read it in full yet but I'm owed about £7k in unpaid maintenance. My ex has never bothered seeing my 9yo DS and has spent the bulk of the past 9 years avoiding the CSA by refusing to engage with their communications, claiming poverty, refusing outright to pay, deliberately leaving a job when the CSA caught up with him and going on the dole for two years. Most of this time I received nothing, apart from the 2 years he was claiming unemployment, when I received the life-changing sum of £6.25 per fortnight . Last year the CSA found out he'd got a new job and they issued a Deduction of Earnings Order so maintenance is taken from his wage before he gets it. I've been receiving a semi-decent amount for 12 months now but due to his track record, I try not to rely too much on it as I know it could end at any time.

I expect when my case is moved to the new system where I have to pay to reapply to the CSA (or whatever it's called these days), the whole sorry mess will have to start all over again from scratch and I'll be back to square one.

Men (or women) who refuse to pay maintenance should be charged with child neglect imo. After all, if I fucked off without a backwards glance then refused to pay towards my son's upkeep with whoever was raising him, that's exactly what I'd be charged with. The whole system is a disgrace.

That works, Bogey. I like #BeatTheDeadbeats, but that's kind of an American term, and maybe isn't used as much here. Also don't want people to think we mean hitting them with sticks. much

I think you need #CSA or #CMO in there somewhere

#CSAmakethempay sounds good.

Being kind of a huge nerd, and not wanting to do laundry I added up the estimates on the thread thus far.

Together, amongst just 54 posters providing estimates, we've saved our feckless bastard ex partners around £1,286,100.

About £54000 but if he'd not been cooking the books it would be higher. I'll never see it.

Love #CSAmakethempay

I don't have experience of this, but just want to say I would totally support this campaign.

Hi would be more inclined to use #CMSmakethempay, as the CSA has been declared defunct since a long time ago. We can't ask the dead to do the job, even if they are currently just zombieing being phased out.

Can someone tell me about the law?

1. When the CSA ceased were CSA owed amounts written off or can parents themselves sue the other half now which previously they could not?
2. Under the new system if the other parent does not pay what is agreed can you sue instead of using the CMA?

If you are allowed to sue I wonder if there is scope for very large group actions and indeed selling these rights to sue to a claims company?

I have never bothered to claim as I earn a lot more than the ex but it still feels very unfair. You would expect these men to want to pay something and also he does not childcare at all. So you get the silly situation of my working full time all summer except one week - he with 7 weeks off school and not having the children even for 3 hours never mind a whole night. Why do women date this kind of man?

Oh, also I received a CSA letter informing me that XH had been told, he must pay for our three DCs.... [drum roll] £3.75 a week.
I phoned CSA to respectfully refuse this, as it was a bloody insult- and was informed that XH was refusing to pay it anyway as he couldn't afford it

My DS has ASD and used to wait on his 'D' F coming to see him. He gave up and never gave them another thought. His loss.

Well, my ex was perfectly responsible and took good care of his son very well through out our marriage and the first months after the split, so I can tell you that no woman should take the blame for "choosing" a bad father.

If we had known how they were going to be, we wouldn't even had agree to go out with them at all.

About the law, there is no point in sueing: It us too expensive and even if you get a good result and get some extra money based on the circumstances of the case, the paying parent is legally out of the hook and subject just to statutory CM within a year.

It is not that we do not have the rules to get nrps to pay CM, the system is there but has very limited power to enforce such rules.

As far as I'm aware, you can't sue. CSA is being replaced by CMS, which is supposed to have more powers than CSA did. Some parents were contacted when their cases were being transferred from CMS to CSA to ask if they would like to write off the arrears, but it wasn't an automatic process.

#CMSmakethempay works. It doesn't rhyme, but one can't have everything.

I don't just want them to pay, though. I want them to be shamed and shunned for the abusers that they are. They're happy to watch their children go without, for their own selfish reasons. The Daily Fail is happy enough to pounce on benefit fraud, while these guys defraud innocent children and their own flesh and blood. Society lets it go, and the mums are worn out with the battle of doing it all on theiri own.

I want... someone like Maggie Gyllenhaal to give them a hard stare over the top of her specs until they feel small.

Shit, I did not mean Maggie Gyllenhaal. I meant someone totally different and now I don't know what her name is. But she's famous and stern.

Dammit.

Maggie Smith?

This one! She looks like she could make a douchebag feel SHAME

Cross post, Thanks Ledare!